


Krystal Clear

by Writesalott



Category: Original Work
Genre: Other, Short Story, Suicide, Tragedy, original - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 10:25:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12079191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writesalott/pseuds/Writesalott
Summary: Life moved forward as usual. You can't see what's wrong until smiles turn to tears. Why did she do it? How can you know if she isn't here to ask? All you can do is ask yourself questions you have no answers for and recall the past over and over until you are not really sure what actually happened and what was just a figment of your imagination.





	Krystal Clear

Daily life can be a struggle. Burn or bust. Balance is essential to maintain any sense of normality. Balance is hard work and requires long term attention and energy. But there is only so much control you have over the balance in your life. You have no say in when or to whom you're born. Both of which can shape a person more than most realise. You can't control the events around you. The things that hit you so hard you don't think you will ever stand up again are almost always outside your control. The only thing you can control if whether you ever get up again.

Your arms move to combat the loud noise assaulting your ears. The noise stops and you drift away. Yes, much better. Existing in that happy space between sleep and waking, there is nothing like it. Then the horrible noise reasserts itself, unwilling to be ignored. Your hand reaches out to silence it again, though you know you should heed it's call you don't care in this moment. You are almost back in dreamland when a sharper noise cuts throw your mind. You are suddenly more aware of your arms and legs. Aware of your position in relation to the room and slowly you realize you aren't standing naked in geometry class. You are, in fact, lying in bed with your alarm going off while your mother bangs on the door to wake you up. Well, at least you're not in geometry. All hope of more sleep is gone when you see the clock. You should have been out of bed a quarter hour ago. With more effort than the task should require you drag your tired self out of bed, while cursing your past self for staying up so late reading. Getting dressed quickly you make your way down the stairs, automatically going for the table where your mother has made breakfast. Or to be more exact put the cereal near the milk.

"What's happening in school today honey?" she asks.

"Stuff," you reply in monotone. My mother gives me a look that very distinctly says: that isn't helpful, but you ignore her because your brothers has just come downstairs which means you need to eat fast before all the food is gone.

It's an average Tuesday morning which means when you arrive at school, just before the bell, your first class is Geometry. With a sigh you sit down, knowing it at least won't be as bad as your dream that morning since you hadn't forgotten to dress. But your weird dream can't make the class anymore interesting and by the time the teacher dismisses you, you've almost fallen asleep twice. Math afterwards is slightly less boring but somehow you are able to stay awake better. Then finally its break, your favourite time of day because your friends are there with you to enjoy the ten minutes of non-class before English. Then after a few more of shakespeare's dirty jokes than you wanted to hear it's lunchtime.

"Tell me more about your dream," Krystal says.

"Your typical public nude dream really," you reply. "Mr. Anderson calls me to the front of the class. I suddenly forget everything I was supposed to say and think Ontario is in Russia then I'm buck naked and my alarm goes off."

"Better than my dream last night," Krystal says. "My math homework tried to eat me."

"I think that has some potential," Sean laughs. "The Math Monster coming to a theatre near you this fall." Everyone laughs and then the bells goes.

The other half of English is similar to the first though you enjoy the silent reading time the best. Gym is thankfully the last class of the day as you don't like how little time they give you to change out of your gym strip before your next class.

Just an average Tuesday. Sometimes the classes moved times, because the school gets some sadistic pleasure from having new students show up to the wrong class, but otherwise that's pretty much it. That's your life. School, friends, family and sleeping in on weekends.

That is until...

It was a Thursday right before lunch. You are watching the clock tick while your stomach growls. Then someone walks into your class and calls you out. The teacher excuses you to follow this stranger to a small room where they close the door.

"I am sorry to be the one to have to tell you this," the person says. "But your friend Krystal has taken her own life. We just found her this morning behind the school. I believe…"

You can't hear the sounds he's making after that. You aren't sure where you are anymore. The world spins as your mind refuses to accept the stranger's words. It wasn't possible. Krystal was fine. They had plans on the weekend. Krystal couldn't be gone. You bolt, down the hallway and out the back door. Beyond the school, he had said. You can hear the stranger puffing behind you, but you don't really care. You kept running until you stop dead in your tracks. Your best friend is cold and white, sitting at one of those stupidly uncomfortable school benches. Her hand's open and an empty pill bottle is resting a few inches from it as if it had rolled from her hand when her grip had gone slack.

The world is happening around you, but you don't care. Your mind is stuck, frozen in shock while you are only slightly aware of the people in professional uniforms. You can almost recall your mother being mad that you'd been told before her and even more angry that no one stopped you from seeing the body. Hands try to move you away, but you don't let them. You are going to stand here until she wakes up. You know that is never going to happen. You know from the emptiness in her eyes that she is gone, but still you won't be moved. You do registered from the voices around you, that there will be no investigation into her dead. Suicide. That's what they call it. No one wants to put in the energy to try and discovered fault. You hate that somehow. Hate that her death has less meaning because she 'choose' it. You know Krystal didn't choose this. Even if she'd done the thing herself that didn't mean she'd wanted to die. It just mean death was preferable to being alive. Something or someone had been the cause of Krystal's unhappiness and you decide in that moment that they are to blame for this.

Finally you have no choice but to move, though only because your empty stomach convulsives. They don't take you back to class. Someone takes you home. It might be your mother but you hardly register who. You can't tell which way is up and which is down but you want no part of any of it.

You want to talk to Krystal. To ask her why. Why hadn't she said something before? Why hadn't she come to you for help? Why hadn't she been able to pull strength from the ones who love her? So many people loved her. Who had been the one to make her so depressed she'd seen no other way out? Who? What? How? Why? WHY!?

All you can do is ask yourself questions that can't be answered. That can never be answered. All you can do is recall past events over and over in your mind until you aren't really sure what happened at all. But in the end the simple reality is that she is gone. It feels like life should stop. Like the world should notice that she's gone. It feels so wrong when the world moves on. You can't forget her and yet at the same time you worry you will forget the important parts of her. The beauty she created when she played the guitar or the way she laughed when her little brothers squabbled. Those were what you wanted to remember, not the imagine forever embedded behind your eyelids, of her white skin and empty eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave me a comment and tell me what you think. Sorry if this hit too close to home. It does for me too.


End file.
